Saturday Morning Massacre
So now the government wants
television to teach the kids:
Every broadcast network, if it
doesn't want to get in dutch
with Uncle Sam, will have to air
three—count 'em—three hours
of "high-quality" educational TV
a week. A thousand Puzzle Places
will bloom! Let slip The Magic
School Bus! Hail, hail Bill Nye
Cartoon hero Super Kid Clinton
and archvillain The One-Armed
Man don't agree on much, but
they get along like Starsky and
Hutch on the very pressing need
to make the boob tube
everybody's Miss Crabtree. Such
a policy is as delusional,
doomed, and guffaw-laden as one
of The Brain's schemes for world
domination. And just as easily
captured on videotape, if not as
easily rewound and erased.
Why won't such a great idea work?
For starters, TV stations are
already strong-armed into airing
kids' shows that supposedly
edify and uplift, the ethical
equivalent of a Wonderbra. The
Federal Communications
Commission, which allocates
licenses to TV and radio
stations, makes sure that
stations air educational kids'
shows that serve the "public
interest," a term more expansive
than and twice as sticky as
Past FCC definitions of "good"
kid TV shows provide an
indication of what the
government is likely to stamp
USTV prime: Winnie the Pooh and
Friends (starring a slothful,
glad-handing bear so obese that
his sides split whenever he
bends over to touch his toes and
so stupid that he regularly
sticks his head into bees' nests –
silly old bear); Saved By the
Bell (a pedophilic fantasy of
sub-Archie level high school
antics, one step removed from
kiddie porn); and The Smurfs (a
Belgian import every bit as
syrupy-sweet and vomit-inducing
as those goddamn waffles, and
one that inculcated little more
than genocidal hatred of the
blue-skinned peoples of the
world).
Shows that somehow failed to
educate include The Flintstones
(perhaps because it propagated
not merely the creationist
belief that humans and dinosaurs
coexisted, but that they were on
relatively good terms); The
Jetsons (which dared to envision
a future in which the only
governmental function left was
the policing of speeding flying
saucers); and Super Mario
Brothers (which relegated
Italian-Americans to the
crassest Moustache Pete
stereotypes even as it
celebrated the strongest
fraternal bond since Jack and
Bobby Kennedy time-shared
Marilyn Monroe).
It all smacks of a rerun:
Beefed-up governmental mandates
in the 1970s were responsible
for the creation of all sorts of
edutainment TV that neither
taught much in the way of
meaningful knowledge nor glued
kids in front of the idiot box
so their parents could enjoy
their morning coffee in peace.
Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo, and the rest
of the Hanna-Barbera mafia
started flying around the globe
in a giant, ecologically
sensitive "ark," but even dumb
kids didn't believe that
Snagglepuss cared about putting
garbage in its place (Exit,
stage left). The Superfriends –
featuring a group of DC heroes
(Superman, Batman, Robin,
Aquaman, and Wonder Woman) about
as interesting as a mayonnaise
sandwich—ended each show with
brief seminars in secret
knowledge: Don't lick electrical
outlets like lollipops, don't
get into cars with strangers,
don't lick strangers like
lollipops. Though a generation
bombarded by Schoolhouse Rock
knows where Lolly, Lolly, Lolly
got their adverbs, there's no
evidence that such human guinea
pigs can use those pesky "ly"
words more efficient-ly than
kids before or after.
But the whole push for good—or,
more correctly, good-fer-ya—TV
is misguided in yet another,
more interesting way: It totally
misrepresents what education
kids do glean from the tube,
especially on Saturday mornings.
Long before, say, Bugs Bunny had
his nuts chopped off and his
cartoons snipped to pieces by
network censors, the
Oscar-winning rabbit and his
pals taught a host of powerful,
potent, and subversive lessons:
that wiseacres have more fun;
that it is better to smurf
someone than be smurfed by them;
that tortoises beat hares
(TORTOISE BEATS HARE!?!),
especially when tortoises cheat;
that authority exists to be
laughed at; that what goes
around comes around; that
monsters are the most
interestin' people; that the
world is, in the main, a cruel
and desperate place that would
just as soon drop an anvil on
your head as give you a hand up;
and, finally, that jokes, even
bitter, mean ones—perhaps
especially those—provide
something of a diversion.
Nick Gillespie is editor-in-chief of reason. This story originally appeared in Suck, and can be viewed in that format here.